


see you when we get there

by InsiderKiwi



Category: Free!
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, M/M, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsiderKiwi/pseuds/InsiderKiwi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What are you saying?”</p><p>“I’m saying,” Rin scratched the back of his neck, picking his next words carefully, “I’m saying you should let me come with you.”</p><p>World Travel AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	see you when we get there

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a really long time ago intending it to turn into a longfic but I abandoned it and now I can't finish it but I still think it's still the best thing I've ever written so here ya go

Þingvallavatn Lake, Iceland - July

Haruka gave a longing glance at the water as he tried to focus on the diving instructor, addressing the small diving group in front of him in Icelandic. The diving instructor gestured again to the mouthpiece of the oxygen tank, and repeated himself in a language that could hardly be called comprehensible to Haruka, who had never before set foot outside of Japan. It was nothing he didn’t already know though. Stay together, don’t go too deep, pay attention to the instructor, don’t do anything stupid. The basic rules of group dives.

“I have no clue what this guy is saying,” a voice whispered into Haruka’s ear. He jumped, startled both by the proximity of the voice and the sudden Japanese. He turned his head to glare at the source.

This guy is loud, is Haruka’s first thought. If appearances tell you about a person, this guy’s appearance screamed about him. Red hair tucked into the top of his wetsuit, red eyes, long, dark lashes, sharp nose, and a mouth curved into a pleased smile. He was young, Haruka’s age at the most. He looked annoying.

Haru turned back to the instructor, as if suddenly his speech sounded more like Japanese and less like a hopeless string of endless, incomprehensible words.

“I’m Rin. Matsuoka Rin,” the stranger said again, nudging Haruka’s knee with his. Definitely annoying.

“I’m Nanase Haruka and I’m trying to listen,” Haru replied. Just shut up. Shut up and go away shutupshutupshutup.

“You understand Icelandic, Nanase?” Of course he didn’t, but he wasn’t about to dignify the stranger’s intrusive proddings with a response.

Haruka sighed and ignored him, letting the steady rhythm of the instructor’s voice fill his head until his speech was over. The red-headed passenger, Matsuoka he was loathe to remember, pestered him a few more times before turning and asking a question in a different language to the older woman on his right.

The instructor quieted, and began his last check of the divers’ equipment. Haru adjusted his goggles before checking his mouthpiece. The instructor called out, and one diver stepped forward, approaching the narrow passage of rocks that led into the heart of the Rift. Haru stepped forward next, eager to get in the water. There was no more than a few feet on either side of the walls of rocks that marked the divide between the continent of Europe and North America. The water was shallow at first, cool and clear, with hardly enough room to fully submerge his body. As he swam further, the Rift became deeper, but never so wide that Haruka couldn’t reach out his hands and touch both continents. The only life in the water there was the occasional Arctic Char, but the water was cool and clear.

Haru turned to face the surface when he felt something brush his calf, expecting to see another fish, but it was another diver. Matsuoka, judging by the flashy red stripes on the sides of his wetsuit. His suspicions were confirmed when the diver waved, smiling through the mouthpiece, and then stretched his arms out to touch the rock walls on either side of him.

Matsuoka’s movements were fluid and natural, and Haruka recognized how completely the water accepted him. It was… completely and utterly infuriating. And how could it be anything less? This weirdo, this loud, obnoxious weirdo, who had so annoyed him on land, swam in the water, Haruka’s water, as if he had been born with fins instead of legs. The water accepted him like a long-time lover and in turn, Rin claimed the water for his own, cutting through it like a razor’s edge, taking everything it had to give him.

Haru swam forward in a burst of speed, eager to get away from Matsuoka’s irritating presence. The Rift soon opened into a lagoon, with a visibility of 300 feet. It was, perhaps, the clearest water Nanase Haruka had ever swam in. It was why had had travelled halfway around the world in the first place. His gloved hand brushed the green algae coating the rocks. It looked like green silly string, long and tubular.

Another hand bumped into his, followed by a shoulder against his shoulder. It was Matsuoka again. Haru turned to ignore him, but did not miss his gesture, a single finger pointing towards the surface. It had already been thirty minutes and it was time to surface. One by one the divers breached the surface, swimming the short distance to the rocky cove. Haruka was last, and he saw that Matsuoka was waiting for him. Haru sighed, and accepted the hand that pulled him from the icy water.

Matsuoka steadied him as he removed his fins to make the walk to where the van was waiting to take them back to town.

“Amazing, wasn’t it?” Matsuoka grinned at him. Haruka was too pleased with the dive to put up much of a fight.

“Yeah, it was.”

Matsuoka was silent for a moment before asking, “Do you dive much?”

“Whenever the pool back home is closed,” Haru responded, slowly considering each word. Who knew what this rambunctious stranger wanted from him? It definitely wasn’t anything good.

“I thought so, you looked like a natural,” Rin continued to explain to Haru that he too, had been diving for several years. It was something he picked up from years spent living in Sydney, Australia, since “of course you can’t go to Sydney and not dive the Great Barrier Reef, you know?”

Haruka nodded complacently the whole ride back to town. He offered very little information about himself, but Matsuoka didn’t seem to mind. He learned that Matsuoka had been swimming since he was little, currently on break from his professional team in Sydney for reasons he would not elaborate on (and Haruka frankly wasn’t interested in), but hadn’t started diving until middle school. He dived when he could, and had come to Silfra rift after hearing about how amazing it was from a friend. He was Haruka’s age, twenty-two, from a town called Sano, closer to Tokyo than Haruka’s hometown of Iwatobi, but Matsuoka felt little tie to the city he hadn’t lived in since he was an elementary schooler.

He insisted on following Haruka to the front steps of his hotel, and hardly stopped talking the whole way. Haruka let out a sigh of relief when he reached the door, and pointedly glared at his still-chattering companion. Matsuoka stopped mid-sentence when he realized that their time together was over, but grabbed Haruka’s wrist as he turned to go inside.

“Can I meet you for breakfast?” he blurted. Haru looked at him in disbelief for a moment. Why is he asking this? Why is he so interested in Haruka? How long does he have to put up with this?

And maybe it was the way Matsuoka was suddenly quiet and still, maybe it was the way his voice quivered as if preparing himself for the disappointment of being let down that made Haruka say, “Do whatever you like.”

*******

Haruka poked his fork into the food on his plate, disappointed that the breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant did not include mackerel. His plane didn’t leave until the evening, so he had time to relax, and review his plans for the next leg of his journey. He had never given Matsuoka a time nor place to meet for breakfast, and was surprised, then, when he saw the man enter the restaurant. He glanced around, spotted Haruka, and grinned widely as he made his way over to him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Matsuoka said as he took a seat across from Haruka. He draped his black coat across the back of his chair and removed his gloves, trying to rub some warmth back into his hands. His red hair peeked out from under a black cap.

“Yeah,” Haruka said through a bite of toast, “It’s not as if you followed me all the way back to my hotel yesterday.”

Matsuoka grimaced and mumbled something incoherent. He was silent for a moment, before opening and closing his mouth in rapid succession, each abortive attempt wearing further and further on Haruka’s nerves. Rin finally settled on asking him why he had come so far from home for a 30-minute diving trip.

“Not to be rude, but you don’t seem like the type of guy to just pack up and travel by yourself to a place you don’t know where you have to interact with people you don’t know in a language you don’t know,” the redhead observed, picking at a bagel he had grabbed from Haruka’s plate.

“You barely know me,” Haruka retorted. It was annoying how close to the truth he was, but Haruka would never let him know that. Matsuoka simply shrugged, as if the thought of them having only met each other yesterday barely crossed his mind. Haru sighed.

“My parents gave me one year to travel if I promise to go back to school,” Haru muttered. Matsuoka broke into a smile at the admission.

“Oh, yeah? Where are you headed next?” he asked. Haruka’s eyes flickered to the weathered list on a piece of folded and refolded sketchbook paper tucked under the flight itinerary. Matsuoka’s eyes did not fail to notice, and Haruka didn’t have time to react before his hand snatched the list out from under him.

“Hmm, the World Water Sites?” he read aloud, deftly dodging all attempts by Haruka to recover the paper. “Let’s see… First, Silfra Rift. Check. Second, Marble Caves, Chile. Next, the Blue Grotto in Italy, the Marieta Islands in Mexico, Tinago Falls, Philippines.”

Haru lunged again for the list, but Matsuoka would not be deterred. “Pura Ulun Danu Bratan, a water temple in Bali, and last but not least, Pink Lake, Australia.”

Matsuoka allowed Haruka to grab the list this time. Haruka glared at him. This guy had been trouble from the start, and now he’s going to make fun of his list.

“Nanase, you’re amazing,” Rin sighed dreamily, resting his chin on his hand. Haruka’s eyes widened as he continued. “Travelling around with a list you made, of all the romantic places you want to go-”

“Don’t call them romantic, stupid.”

“It is romantic though!” Haru colored at his words and turned away. This guy was weird and annoying and, and-he didn’t laugh at your list.

Matsuoka said nothing for a bit, both men picked at their food in silence. Finally, he spoke.

“You should call me Rin and I’ll call you Haru.”

“Don’t call me by a weird nickname.”

Matsuoka snickered and chanted, “Haru, Haru, Haru” until Haruka’s head was swimming.

“Call me whatever you like then, Rin-rin!” he barked, ignoring the stares they were beginning to attract from the other customers in the restaurant.

Matsuoka-Rin-colored. “Don’t call me that.”

“Rin-rin.”

“Haru.”

“Rin-rin.”

“Haru-chan.”

Both men growled and turned away, their childish match a draw. Rin cleared his throat and turned back to where Haru was still sitting with a slight pout.

“Haru,” Rin continued, ignoring the pointed glare at the familiarity, “Your list is amazing, but do you really think you can travel the world only knowing Japanese with only a list to guide you?”

Haru’s knuckles tightened unconsciously around the plane itinerary below him. “You don’t think I can?”

“If anyone can, you can,” Rin laughed, “but having some help wouldn’t hurt, right?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Rin scratched the back of his neck, picking his next words carefully, “I’m saying you should let me come with you.”

Oh.

“It’s dangerous to travel alone, I’ve been to a few of the countries on your list, and I know English,” Rin explained, pointing to the list at the top of the stack of papers now crumpled in Haruka’s fist, “and I can pay for myself. I just want to go with you, that’s all.”

“Why though?” Haru could feel a headache coming on. This guy was being weird and Haruka had every reason to say “no”, but he hadn’t. Not yet.

“I don’t know,” Rin replied, slowly chewing on his words, “Maybe together we can see a sight we’ve never seen before.”

Haru looked at him in disbelief. His words didn’t make sense, and Haruka’s headache was growing stronger.

“Do whatever you like.”

Haru grabbed his papers, left money for the check, and returned to his room upstairs to finish packing.

He was throwing clothes into his bag when his hand brushed against something small and solid. It was the little-used travel cellphone makoto had insisted he bring along with him. He paused. His fingers hovered over the lock screen for a moment before coming to a decision. A blinking blue light signaled that Makoto had left him a voicemail, but Haruka ignored it and dialed the number for the airline company. Selecting the Japanese language option, Haruka waited for someone to pick up.

“Icelandair, how may I help you?” A female voice asked, over-rehearsed to the point of sounding robotic.

“I’d like to change my destination,” Haru replied, voice shaking imperceptibly.

“Very good, sir. Please give us your ticket number and the destination listed on the tickets.”

Haru read aloud the string of numbers printed on his ticket receipt. “My destination was Iwatobi, Japan.”

“And what is your new destination, sir?”

“Santiago, Chile.”

*******

Puerto Tranquilo, Chile

Haru collapsed on his bed, exhausted by the long bus ride from Santiago to the small town bordering the North shore of the General Carrera Lake. As if a cramped, 15 hour flight hadn’t been enough, he had been shoved in between a curious German couple for the entire bus ride to the Southern tip of the nation. The ride had taken more than a day, and Haruka couldn’t say with certainty what day it was. All he knew was that he had made it, without the help of a certain redhead he still hadn’t seen since that morning at the restaurant in Iceland.

They hadn’t made any plans, no promises except for the one: that they’d see each other again in Chile. Rin hadn’t followed Haruka to his room, wasn’t in the lobby when Haruka brought his luggage down, and he wasn’t about to searching for some annoying redheaded tourist in a town he wasn’t familiar with. It didn’t matter, not to Haruka. There was something like an itch in the back of his mind that told him he and Rin would meet again, that it was destined. Rin would find his way to the water again, and Haruka would be there to greet him, as if they had always been the best of friends and always would be. It was irritating, but perhaps the only certainty Haruka could feel in this new land, so he clung to it reluctantly, and it settled somewhere in the back of his mind, a constant reminder that Rin would be with him soon.

Haru dozed off, but was awoken hours later by the sound of luggage banging up the steps of the inn. His stomach growled, and he was reminded that the last time he ate was at a gas station in the middle of god-knows-where Patagonia during a refueling stop. Haruka lifted himself out of the bed and opened his door.

As he took in the shock of red hair and the litany of curses streaming from the mouth of his new neighbor, Haruka was unsurprised to find himself face to face with one Matsuoka Rin.

Rin fumbled again with his room key before looking up.

“Haru?” his dumbfounded words morphed into an expression of sheer excitement as Rin recognized the sheer dumb luck that had brought them together again.

*******

Rin insisted on joining him for dinner in town, so Haruka waited in the lobby of the inn while Rin put away his luggage. Finally, when he was ready, they made their way towards a street lined with several restaurants.

Rin said little, but Haruka could feel his excitement buzzing around him like flies at a fish market, but if the extra lift in Rin’s stride annoyed him, he didn’t say so. It was already dark and chilly, winter in this half of the world, and Haruka shivered into his jacket as Rin led him inside one of the buildings.

The interior was warm and cozy, and the food delicious. Rin recounted his version of the epic bus ride from Santiago. Rin had apparently only barely missed Haruka’s bus, and caught the very next one. Despite one flat tire and an Argentinian shepherd whose flock took up the entire highway for an hour as they slowly made their way across the road, Rin’s journey had been surprisingly smooth, and there had been no shortage of interesting passengers aboard his bus.

“So how was your trip, Haru?” Haruka still flinched at the familiar use of his name, but already he was growing complacent about it. He accepted it as an inevitable that Rin would use every ounce of his power to bother him, and resolved not to care.

“It was fine,” Haru replied, picking at his plate. Rin sighed when it became obvious he had nothing else to say on the subject, and changed the topic.

“Are we renting boats tomorrow?” Rin asked, pulling a leaflet out of his pocket, “It’s a bit cold to swim, but we can kayak there with a tour group.”

Haru furrowed his brows at the leaflet. “I want to swim.”

Rin frowned. “Then you should have come in the summer when it was warmer.”

“It is summer,” Haru muttered, realizing his mistake. So what if he forgot about details as small as hemispheres - who was Rin to point it out to him? Rin smiled fondly at him from across the table, and it was every bit as irritating as him saying “See? You need me.”

Haru reluctantly agreed to meet Rin at the boat rental shop the next morning, and Rin called for their checks. They bid each other goodnight when they reached the doors to their rooms, and Haruka could swear there was something Rin wanted to say, but all Rin said was “see you tomorrow.”

As Haruka laid in his bed that night, he could feel Rin’s energy from the other side of the wall. Was Rin lying in his bed, able to feel it too? Haruka wondered how long this feeling would last. It surrounded and filled him with an urge to do something, anything, but nothing came to mind and it made him restless. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch, a bump in the utterly unremarkable life he had led up until this point.

It was a long while before he could sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a little bit more to this in the google doc but I can't even finish the section I left off on. i'm pretty sure this was meant to explore a mental breakdown that got rin put on probation from the swim team and examine how haruka's insecurities may have manifested themselves without rin around as a kid. i was definitely writing this out of frustration with AUs that have them meet and immediately fall in love because of how far it was from canon. they really have some issues but that's what makes me love them so much. maybe one day i'll come back to harurin and come back to this, but posting this honestly feels like i'm saying goodbye to the fandom. i'll always love harurin and the time in my life where it was everything to me. thanks free! fandom for giving me the best and worst times of my life. /end sappy author's note


End file.
